He laughed. His alert and retentive mind had seized, long ago, on
Rowlatt's recommendation at the Little Bear Inn, and he had
developed, perhaps half consciously, a half sense of humour. A whole
sense, however, is not congruous with the fervid beliefs and soaring
ambitions of eighteen. Your sense of humour, that delicate
percipience of proportion, that subrident check on impulse, that
touch of the divine fellowship with human frailty, is a thing of
mellower growth. It is a solvent and not an excitant. It does not
stimulate to sublime effort; but it can cool raging passion. It can
take the salt from tears, the bitterness from judgment, the keenness
from despair; but in its universal manifestation it would
effectually stop a naval engagement.

Paul laughed. "You mustn't think I brag too much, Jane," said he.
"For anybody else I know what I say would be ridiculous. But for me
it's different. I'm going to be a great man. I know it. If I'm not
going to be a great actor, I shall be a great something else. God
doesn't put such things into people's heads for nothing. He didn't
take me from the factory in Bludston and set me here with you,
walking up Regent Street, like a gentleman, just to throw me back
into the gutter."

"But who said you were going back to the gutter?" asked Jane.

"Nobody. I wanted to get right with myself. But--that getting
right with oneself--do you think it egotistic?"

"I don't quite know what that is."